


V is for Vesper

by Sapphire_Princess



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, 007 Fest 2020, Angst, F/M, M/M, Past James Bond/Vesper Lynd, Prompt Fill, can't name the other character because spoilers, my own vampire lore, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25091788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphire_Princess/pseuds/Sapphire_Princess
Summary: 007 Fest Prompt Fill: "Vesper is a Vampire."High up on a rooftop in Venice, Vesper watches the man she loves go about his life years after her apparent death. She isn't alone for long.
Relationships: James Bond/Q, James Bond/Vesper Lynd
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: 007 Fest Fancreations





	V is for Vesper

“You’re lucky he hasn’t noticed you watching him yet.”

“I suppose I’m lucky you haven’t decided to kill me.”

He shrugs. “I have no interest in doing that. So far I haven’t seen or had word of you killing another human so I think we’re good.”

Vesper shakes her head and wraps her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. Her blue dress blows softly in the wind and from down below she looks like a piece of the sky.

“We’ve dealt with your Sire, I’m not sure whether or not that’s the right term, but Bond found him and I executed him.”

“It’s been almost 90 years. How on earth did he track him down?” she asks.

“Same m.o.”

Vesper’s laugh is a short, sad sound but she doesn’t offer anything else.

“And Bond has no idea any of this exists,” he waves his hand at the two of them sat on a roof in Venice, looking over the Grande Canal.

Vesper closes her eyes and remembers, against her will, starving herself of blood to leave her feeling cold and dead as she ‘drowned’. She’d wondered if she really would be killed - if they’d cremate or bury her - and found she didn’t particularly care one way or another so let it happen.

“You could have told him.”

“He’d have wanted to be like me and I couldn’t do that to someone else… but eventually, I think I would have given in, then you’d have come after me anyway. I’d have died and he would probably started tearing apart the world. Or waited until he met him,” she says, gesturing to the gondola they’re watching make its way past them. “And the whole horrible cycle would have started all over again.

“I was an anomaly until I met James and had he been any other man I’d have stayed that way.”

“But you can’t help but watch him.”

“Only on the continent. I stayed here for the first few years; I didn’t expect he’d want to return but he did. And he has, now with his new lover.”

“They married earlier this year,” he tells her.

Vesper blinks back tears, then laughs sadly. People are convinced Vampires can’t cry or eat or be out in daylight. She can do all three but it’s not the blessing she once hoped it would be.

“Are they happy?” she asks.

“By all accounts, yes. Very much so.”

“Is he… anything special?”

“James’ new husband? Not in the way you mean no, he’s a Genius but of the human variety. His sister is but aside from a few special talents her lifespan won’t be noticeably longer so it’s unlikely anyone will notice. I’m not sure she really knows.”

“Hm.”

She watches as James and his husband break their conversation for a kiss. Her heart breaks with a melancholy sadness. It’s not as if spending the last seven years with him would have made it any harder to leave him. And this is better for him.

Better for the young, determined agent she’d met and fallen in love with to lose her and move on whilst he still could than to drag out the inevitable heartbreak.

“You haven’t aged either,” Vesper states as she realises it’s true. “At all in the last, what, fifty years?”

“Something like that. I do age, but very slowly. Ten years of life for one year of human aging.”

“Did you make the bargain willingly?”

He shakes his head. “Do any of us?”

Vesper closes her eyes against the memory of him telling her it was going to be okay, that he’s making sure they can be together forever - like she’d promised. Thinking forever was in human terms.

_She was just a girl. Naive and innocent at the sheltered age of 21 she’d survived the Great War in the same nunnery she was raised in, then apprenticed off for her language abilities to translate in a museum - behind the scenes, of course. Wouldn’t do to see a young lady doing such strenuous work, but the war had taken so many of their prospective hires and they couldn’t let the knowledge be lost._

_Vesper must have been easy pickings when Yusuf found her, dazzled her with his smiles and charm, taking her out in his car and taking her to Paris after proposing marriage._

_She remembers the way her heart fluttered, the wonderful sense of peace she felt whenever she was with him, and wondered if this was what true love felt like._

_She did love Yousuf, even now there’s no doubt of that, but to him, she was a thing to be played with; an indulgence for a little while until it was time to turn her._

_He’d stayed for a while, of course, then had to leave and Vesper was alone, no longer human and terrified by how loud and bright the world was. So much noise that she hadn’t noticed her heart had ceased beating until the manor she’d been left in was deserted._

“Vesper?”

She turns her head and catches the band of pale skin on his finger. “I’m sorry,” she says.

He shakes his head. “You needn’t be. We had a good life together and made sure I looked old enough to stay by her side without suspicion.”

“Was it enough? Your time together?” she asks once James and his husband are out of sight, the light bouncing off the choppy waters obscuring their journey.

“You already know the answer to that. It was and it wasn’t.”

“How long…?”

“Twelve years now. She’s at peace.”

“Cold comfort,” she remarks darkly.

“As I said, it isn’t as if you and I were given a choice in these matters.”

“I remember Le Chiffre screaming at me in a rage that I could kill myself if I wanted to escape this, that he’d help me, but it… I’ve been reckless with my life before and I… I don’t know. These past few years here, living a quiet life, I think that has been my choice.”

“You say it as if you’re intending to leave.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

He shakes his head. “No. I was here to warn you about their marriage, and maybe as an excuse to see a friendly face. One that can understand what it’s like to be in the world but not really a part of it.”

_He was so brave and so strong, taking them down the way he had and mistaking her horror for overwhelming bloodlust._

_It had left her feeling so very cold that only the heat of the shower had kept her together enough to keep her fangs from extending and her eyes from changing._

_But when James had come in and sat with her, lending her his warmth and a touch of humanity she’d felt as though that divide she often felt with the rest of the world had been narrowed; James her bridge back to it for a little while._

_And what a lovely, lovely time it had been; the ocean, someone who loved her so much they’d resigned their position for her…_

_He’d wrapped her in blankets when he thought her cold, not commented on the strange scent her wine must have held; wine she’d asked him to leave just for her._

_They’d danced and kissed in the middle of an endless and all-encompassing world of stars above and below them on a calm calm ocean._

_She’d held paradise in her arms, loved him with everything she had and acknowledged, when she’d realised it had to end, that she wouldn’t love another in the way she had James Bond._

_Vesper had wanted it to last at least long enough for them to marry but alas, the end came for them too soon._

“What’s your connection to him?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Then why?” she asks this strange man with eyes that seem both too sharp and sad in the light of the afternoon.

“His number. I was friends with a previous 007. Best friends and when the time came when I had to make a choice to betray him or stay by his side I chose the latter and it got him killed.”

“Alec…” Vesper trails off as she understands no words will heal that pain, however long ago it was.

“Were you human?”

“Yes. That’s what lead to this, probably. I was an erratic and easy target after that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Aren’t we all?” he asks, then shakes his head. “I won’t ever know if a different decision would have saved his life but I lived with the consequences.”

Vesper relaxes her legs and lets them dangle over the roof-ledge. She’s not wearing any shoes, an innate ability to glide means she really doesn’t need to but she has them beside her anyway.

“Does he know you?” Vesper asks.

“No. I’ve found it best to stay out of their way.” The way he says it doesn’t convince her and he notices the uptick of her eyebrow. “I slept with the one before James. It didn’t mean anything - to either of us - but it convinced me that the same number doesn’t make them the same man.”

“No. They're of the same breed but they’re each their own person.”

As night falls around them she drops the facade she holds during the daylight; her fangs elongate and her eyes shift.

Alec doesn’t seem to care.

“Do you need to drink human blood?”

Vesper shakes her head. “Anyone who says we do is lying.”

“Even after a day in the sun?”

She laughs and looks at him. “There are so many things true and not true in all the legends. I can walk the earth in daylight, I can eat human food, but I need to consume blood to live or I waste away.”

“Almost sounds like there’s no downside,” Alec says, though not unkindly. 

“Being starved for blood leads to a frenzy in which few survive and, well, I feel apart. Not just because I could live forever, but I’m sure you know that’s part of it.”

“I do.”

“And it isn’t possible for me to enter somewhere uninvited; the world likes to remind my kind we’re an aberration.”

“Strange that that one seems to hold so true.”

“I think it’s old magic, brought forth by the continual belief. I’ve been officially welcomed to this city though, I protect it so it protects me.”

Alec nods, likely because he knows of the societies and beings that also call this place home.

“Well, seeing as we’re friends.”

“Are we?”

“We are. My blood isn’t poisonous to you so if you’re hungry?”

“Alec, that’s not something you should offer lightly. If I drink from you I can track you.”

“Is that how you track Bond?”

“It doesn’t take much.”

Alec shrugs. “Maybe I want you to be able to.”

“Is something going to happen?”

“I don’t know. There are rumors but they’re always there.” Alec shakes his head and takes a breath that makes her chest hurt in longing. “I want an ally and despite the loyalty of your city I suspect you do too.”

Vesper eyes him warily, no sign of fear from her fangs or her eyes.

Alec offers his arm to her and she takes it.

“Alright,” she agrees and sinks in her fangs into the delicate skin of his wrist.

Fin


End file.
